Meet Pirate Joe, the man who (legally) smuggles Trader Joe's goods across the Canadian border

Just one example of the resourceful Canadians, when businesses don't cross the border.

For three years Michael Hallatt has been bringing thousands of dollars’
worth of Trader Joe’s products across the border into Vancouver. Our
reporter spent a day embedded with Pirate Joe’s ‘cats’ and got an inside
look at the cultlike following the pirate brand has captured from the
US corporation

In a darkened parking lot in Bellingham, Washington, less than 50
miles from the Canadian border, two cars pull up alongside a ramshackle
white van. It is a weekday night. The drivers of the cars will not
provide their last names, or appear in photographs. One is wearing a
costume — a $4 thrift store trench coat and styled hair.

Inside the van,
a black-clad man crouches, loading cargo which the drivers collected
and which he will soon carry across the border. The load is tucked
inside brown paper bags and reusable canvas totes; it ranges from dish
soap to black bean quinoa chips. Nothing costs more than $10, and it all
comes from the same place: Trader Joe’s.

“I’ve been in situations that were dangerous before,” John L, the man
in the trench coat, told the Guardian. “But this is not one of them.”

That’s the nickname of Michael Hallatt, who for three years has been bringing thousands of dollars’ worth of Trader Joe’s products
across the border into Vancouver every week. Trader Joe’s, despite
making nearly a million dollars in sales from the operation, wants it to
stop.

In the early days, Pirate Joe’s was the unofficial name for the
enterprise, which Hallatt operated covertly from what looked like a
rundown bakery. In February 2012, Trader Joe’s sent a cease-and-desist
order. Hallatt refused to stop, so the California-based company sued. It
lost. The case is now in the ninth circuit court of appeals and Pirate
Joe’s is operating with more gusto than ever before, making Hallatt a
prime target of a company that is generally known for its progressive
values.

“To be fair to TJ’s, if they were a guy or a gal, then they would
have every right to be pissed off,” Hallatt said. But because Trader
Joe’s is a corporation denying its products to interested consumers, he
says, he is not ashamed of his business. Nor is he bothered by the hate
mail.

“I hope Karma shines on you forcing you to go out of business,” wrote one incensed stranger in an email.

Hallatt has been kicked out of many stores, many times. He now pays
an army of shoppers — he calls them “cats” — to buy groceries at the
Trader Joe’s Bellingham store. Some cats make runs in other Washington
stores; Hallatt himself is safer in territory farther south. His
shoppers have operated in stores in Portland, Oregon, and in at least
five in Los Angeles.

The
cats who shopped in Bellingham this week said many store employees are
familiar with Pirate Joe’s and will turn a blind eye to suspicious carts
that contain things such as two bags each of four types of rice. The
cats create alibis, preparing themselves to say their unusual load is
for bible retreats, camps or catering.

John L broke his shopping record this week with a $950 receipt. He
found out about the gig from his wife, who became involved after seeing a
posting on Craigslist. They do it to earn cash on the side. Sometimes,
they bring their children.

“I’ve got no qualms about lying to a corporation, because a corporation is not a person,” John L said.

To get the goods, Hallatt typically supplies his cats with lists he
makes while walking around the Pirate Joe’s store, which moved from the
bakery to a Vancouver storefront, where its mission is openly displayed:
it is an “unaffiliated, unauthorized re-seller of Trader Joe’s
products”. Hallatt walks round the store, identifying gaps on the
shelves, then dictates the product name into his phone. This means some
shopping lists ask for “speculum” cookies instead of speculoos.

What ends up in a cat’s cart is testament to the fervor Trader Joe’s can inspire. In Canada,
people are willing to pay a markup of $1.50 or more for
dark-chocolate-covered edamame, gorgonzola cheese crackers and
salt-and-pepper pistachios. This week, rice, noodles, peanut butter and
popcorn were also on the list.

With Hallatt on the road, Barry Hogan mans the shop. He has been at
Pirate Joe’s since 2012 — he showed up for his first day wearing a
pirate hat. Before that, he was a runner for a gambler in Dublin.

“I don’t see it [Trader Joe’s] as the neighborhood store that a lot of other people do,” Hogan said.

That may be because it isn’t. The German Albrecht family, which owns
the supermarket giant Aldi, has owned Trader Joe’s through a trust since
1979.

In an August 2010 profile of the company,
based on interviews with dozens of people who asked to be anonymous,
Fortune magazine said Trader Joe’s management was “obsessively
secretive”. Fortune found that the company keeps fewer varieties of
products, like peanut butter, than other grocers, instead focusing on
the best-tasting goods and giving them its own kitschy labeling. This
simplification allows Trader Joe’s to work out deals with manufacturers,
resulting in the low prices for which the store is known.

These are the goods people seek at Pirate Joe’s. One morning this
week, a couple visiting from Nova Scotia picked up coconut cashews for
their son, who lives down the street. One woman bought soups she had
never tried. A man left his phone number, so the store could call him
when a seasonal tin of Danish cookies was finally in stock.

One former Trader Joe’s employee, who stopped working at the store
this summer but asked to remain anonymous in case he wants to work there
again — the chain is often praised for its wages and benefits — said the Bellingham store was one of the top-selling in the US.

While he was on the inside, the worker helped with Pirate Joe’s
operations. “I felt like I was doing the people of Vancouver a service
instead of a disservice to an American corporation,” he said.

“This is not a business I should be doing from a personal
profitability standpoint,” he said, adding that he was living off about
$50,000 to $60,000 a year through Pirate Joe’s, while supplementing his
income with a rental property in Mexico.

Hallatt’s past includes working as a senior producer for Ask Jeeves, a
summer spent windsurfing, building a few houses and opening a
still-standing Vancouver bagel shop.
He likes to time his 106-mile round-trip runs to Bellingham so he can
be back for his 10-year-old daughter’s basketball practice.

He likes Trader Joe’s, believes its mission is an honest one and says
he will stop Pirate Joe’s if the company opens a Vancouver store. While
the policy for cats who are questioned by Trader Joe’s officials is
“deny, deny, deny”, Hallatt said he never lies at the border, where
agents make polite conversation with the pirate they have encountered
many times before.

After the bags of groceries are waived across the border,
meticulously logged in the Canadian customs system, it is time for
“harvest” day. There is no alert that the produce has arrived at Pirate
Joe’s; the rows of Trader Joe’s bags in the store walkways simply lure
in even more people than usual.

Faye Pratt shopped at the original Pirate Joe’s, having taken a bus
with her senior group to Bellingham. The group made a stop at Trader
Joe’s, and even brought freezers along. On Thursday morning, she had
just learned that Pirate Joe’s had moved. She brought a friend along.

“It makes it more fun to think we’re doing something illicit,” she said. “It adds to the taste.”

No. At this time, we don’t sell any products (gift cards included) online, only in our brick-and-mortar stores. We set up our stores with care, finding just the right crew and adding a flavor of paradise. After considering the options, we're still just big ‘ole fans of the neighborhood grocery store where we can say hello when you're looking around wondering – "what's for dinner?"

I have been totally underwhelmed by Trader Joe's. I just don't get it. You buy some other companies product that Trader Joe's has slapped their sticker on. Most of the products they sell are easily found in most regular grocery stores in Canada. My friends in L.A. took me to one to show me how great they were. The reason they thought it was great, was you could get " imported " stuff that wasn't at their local Safeway. MEH. That stuff was all over Canadian grocery store shelves for the most part. The cheap wine wasn't of course, but perhaps I'm a snob when it comes to certain things, but 2 Buck Chuck isn't a wine I'd recommend.